I’ve written so many things in my life: essays, poems, book reports, grocery lists, songs, blog posts, news articles, journal entries, posters, plays, social media posts, short messages, long letters… I could go on and on and on.
All those things contain many words which contain so many letters…
How can 26 little symbols be mixed, rearranged, forced into new harmonies that give sound and structure to the chaos of variation? There are so many things in the world, and we have words for so many of them, formed from the 26 squiggles we call letters.
Word. World. One little line turns something small into the universe.
It blows my mind far away when I consider words. Not only do we try to use 26 different pen-strokes to describe an entire cosmos, but other cultures use different pen-strokes to describe the exact same things. Just thinking about it makes me want to write poetry. I want to create, in every language. But, regrettably, I only know English, a pitiful smattering of Spanish and an even more pathetic smidgen – only select words, in fact – of Latin, French, German and Dutch.
I want to create, and that’s what words do. If you were to lay down in a completely dark, silent room, you would technically be surrounded by empty space, a cold, hard floor and nothing more. Yet what if, in that dark, lonely room, I told you a story of fields of wildflowers, golden sunshine, the sound of the ocean in the distance. What if I told you that, in that flowery, golden field, you made friends with a butterfly and chased it through the field towards the distant waves.
You’re probably rolling your eyes, thinking, “What a dumb field; Can I leave now?” But my point is this: Regardless of whether or not you liked the field or the butterfly, you saw them. Words have the power to create worlds in your mind that do not exist in reality. They have power to create hope regardless of whether or not your reality is hopeful.
I would hazard a guess that many of my readers can remember a time when someone said something – used certain words – that changed who they were or how they saw the world. I can think of a few occasions from my own life. On one occasion, it took only two words to deconstruct everything I thought about myself. On another, it took three words to smash my rose-colored glasses. It doesn’t take many words to change a person’s life. Those people then go out and change other peoples’ lives, and, pretty soon, you’ve changed the world with only two words
What are words but little sounds and little symbols? They are scribbles that hold beauty and terror, wonder and abhorrence, pictures and feelings, dreams and nightmares. Words can bring horror and pain, but they can also bring healing and hope:
You’re not alone.
Just breathe.
I love you.
Words have power, so use them wisely. How is it that these black scratches move us to laugh or to cry or stir deep waves of peace within us? I really don’t know. All I know is that I stare in awe at these words I write, knowing someone will read and understand these thoughts and perhaps even be moved by them.
What a wonderful, strange, beautiful world we live in!
